A report written by a professor of anthropology outlines the historical ties linking the Taunton River, above, and surroundings areas to the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs will consider the report while weighing the tribe's bid to create a reservation in Taunton.

Mashpee tribe's land claim boosted

By GEORGE BRENNAN

gbrennan@capecodonline.com

January 28, 2013 - 2:00 AM

These days, the Taunton River rolls through the Southeastern Massachusetts countryside past aging towns and gentrified mills. But 400 years ago, the people who became the Mashpee Wampanoag fished, hunted and plucked bulrushes along its shores.

Then, they were part of the larger Pokanoket tribe settled around the Taunton area, which they called Cohannut.

Now in a 158-page report written to establish “significant historic and modern ties” to Taunton, the Mashpee tribe asserts its people are all that remain on the mainland of that larger tribe that once inhabited all of Southeastern Massachusetts. Those ties, they contend, give them federal rights to have 146 acres in Taunton taken into trust for a $500 million Indian casino.

The report was written by Kathleen Bragdon, a professor of anthropology at the College of William and Mary whose online biography on the college website states that she works with Native American tribes in the Northeast and Virginia studying “linguistics, archaeology and comparative ethnology.” Bragdon received help from tribe members Ramona Peters, the tribe's director of historic preservation, and Jessie “Little Doe” Baird, who leads a program to reclaim the Wampanoag language.

The Times obtained a copy of the widely anticipated report from a tribe source. The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs will use it to decide whether to accept the tribe's application to create an initial reservation that includes the land in Taunton as well as in Mashpee. Its decision is expected this month.

The tribe declined to comment on how much the report cost to produce. Bragdon did not return calls seeking comment.

Based on previous decisions by the BIA, the tribe must demonstrate “actual historical use and occupancy,” said Kathryn Rand, an Indian gaming expert at the University of North Dakota.

The evidence offered in the report is likely to be challenged by other Wampanoag tribes from the region, though none are federally recognized. Casino critics are also likely to pick apart the data in the hopes of blocking a tribal casino.

The report is backed up by thousands of pages of documents, first-person accounts and historical maps.

“To suggest that, historically, there were no ties between Cohannut and Mashpee (or Massipee, as it was also known) is to ignore plentiful evidence, and to misunderstand the nature of Wampanoag social, political and economic life, both historically, and today,” it states.

'Significant' connection

In 2008, the BIA updated regulations for tribes seeking an initial reservation. Tribes must show a “significant historical connection” and a modern connection, Rand said. “Significant,” means, for example, more-than-occasional visits and proof of that would include burial grounds, village sites and areas used for subsistence.

Tribes are also allowed to seek land in the “vicinity” of their native homelands, though that is not clearly defined. There is no mileage restriction, unless the tribe can't demonstrate a modern connection. In that case, the land must be within 25 miles of a tribe's headquarters.

Mashpee and Taunton are separated by 46 miles by highway, 35 miles as the crow flies.

Years ago, those distances were less important than might be imagined.Cohannut was much larger than modern Taunton, encompassing much of what is now Bridgewater, Lakeville and Middleboro. It was a hub for nearly 70 villages of the Wampanoag Nation, which stretched from Rhode Island east to the Cape and Islands and north to Gloucester.

Maps in the report show trails leading to Cohannut from the east and Cape Cod. It also describes Native Americans traveling from the North River in Scituate to the mouth of the Taunton River in Dighton using the rivers and lakes of what's now known as the Wampanoag Commemorative Canoe Passage.

The Pokanoket (sometimes spelled Pokanocket) spoke one language, which is what distinguished them from the Narragansetts to the southwest, the Pequots and Mohegans to the south and the Nipmucs to the west. They answered to one supreme sachem, known by the title of massasoit, who at the time of the Pilgrims' landing in 1620 was Ousameequin. Tribe members moved freely between the villages, at times seasonally, for food and shelter.

It is Ousameequin's son, Metacom, who is credited with changing the tribe's name from Pokanoket to Wampanoag, which means “Easterners” or “people of the first light,” the report says.

Dozens of pages deal with King Philip's War, a violent bloody battle between Native Americans and English settlers in 1675 and 1676 over the encroachment of settlers in and around Taunton. The war and the ensuing settlement of Southeastern Massachusetts were turning points for the Wampanoag.

In 1665, sachems Tookenchosen and Weepquash, with help from the Rev. Richard Bourne, had deeded to the Mashpee tribe a 25-square-mile tract of land stretching from Cape Cod Bay to Nantucket Sound. In 1670, Bourne established an Indian church at Mashpee.

The report also lists two signed agreements between Plymouth colony leaders and Indian sachems of the Cape and Mashpee region documented in court records.

In 1671 in Taunton, English settlers forced Philip to “lay down his arms” and “sought assurances from other Indian sachems and their followers that they would remain loyal.”

Mashpee became a refuge for many Wampanoag who survived not only the war, but European-induced diseases, the report says. Some were not so lucky and were indentured to colonists or sold into slavery in Bermuda and Barbados.

“Mashpee became the anchor of Christian Indian communities in the area, where peoples of several former lower Cape sachemships gathered to worship, or fled for protection and sustenance, particularly during and after King Philip's War,” the report states.

The report also describes instances in which tribe members have “fiercely defended” rights to its land “to fish, hunt, gather and self-govern.”

In 1763, after the tribe appealed to the crown, Mashpee was established as a self-governing Indian District by the King of England.

In 2007, the United States government acknowledged the tribe's existence and rights as a sovereign nation.

Precedent set

Although Taunton is about an hour's drive from Mashpee, there is precedent for the BIA to approve initial reservations for tribes with some distance between two different locations. In 2010, the agency approved the Cowlitz tribe's application to take land into trust for a casino about 35 miles from its ancestral homeland.

The U.S. Department of the Interior's approval of the Cowlitz land application, even after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling called into question the department's authority, initiated a lawsuit that is being closely watched by tribes across the country.

The Cowlitz tribe, however, demonstrated that the land in question was within its Indian Health Service and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development service areas, Rand said.

“In the same decision, regarding significant historical connections, (the BIA) noted the relevance of the tribe's historical use of the land in question for hunting, fishing, frequent trading expeditions, temporary camps, and the like,” Rand said.

The Mashpee Wampanoag can show similar ties to the Taunton area and beyond.

Sixteen years before it was federally recognized, the tribe was selected in 1991 by the National Park Service to handle the repatriation of Native American artifacts throughout Southeastern Massachusetts.

The Mashpee tribe is also designated to provide health and heating-assistance services for members throughout Southeastern Massachusetts.

Members have worked to preserve Wampanoag sacred grounds such as Betty's Neck in Lakeville and the Watuppa Wampanoag Indian Reservation in the Fall River/Freetown State Forest. These locations are used by tribe members for traditional ceremonies such as sweat lodges.

In the report, the tribe provides a map showing 65 percent of its 2,633 members live within a 50-mile radius of Taunton, “nearly 700 of them residing either in Mashpee or Falmouth.”

The tribe has demonstrated “political, cultural, linguistic and spiritual” perseverance, the report concludes. “With this land base, the Mashpee Wampanoags will have the platform from which to realize their dream to lead the way in efforts to conserve and nurture the territory that was once theirs.”

Fact Box

Overview

What they're trying to prove

- The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 allows federally recognized tribes to offer casino gambling on reservation lands, provided that type of gambling is legal in the state.

- To offer gambling on reservation lands acquired after 1988, a tribe must meet one of several exemptions. The Mashpee Wampanoag are applying to have 146 acres in Taunton and 170 acres in Mashpee taken into federal trust as an “initial reservation,” which is one of those exemptions.

- In 2008, the requirements were updated so that the tribe must demonstrate “significant historic” and “modern” ties to the land being taken into trust.

- The tribe can also apply to have land taken into trust that is in the “vicinity” of its ancestral lands, though vicinity is not defined in the regulations.

- For modern ties, the tribe must demonstrate one of the following:

1. The land is near where a significant number of tribal members reside.

2. The land is within a 25-mile radius of the tribe's headquarters or other tribal governmental facilities that have existed at that location for at least two years at the time of the application for land into trust.

3. The tribe can demonstrate other factors that establish the tribe's current connection to the land.

Source: Federal Register

Tribe's claims in brief

- The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe is part of the overall Pokanoket tribe that called all of Southeastern Massachusetts from Warren, R.I., east to the Cape and Islands and north to Gloucester its ancestral homeland.

- Cohannut, the Indian name for a region that encompasses modern Taunton, Middleboro, Bridgewater and Lakeville, was an important hub for the Pokanoket transportation by land and water.

- The Taunton River area was “resource-rich” for hunting, fishing and gathering. It's still used today by the Mashpee tribe to gather bulrush for basket and matt making.

- Two archaeological sites in the Taunton area are associated with the Wampanoag tribe. The 10,000-year-old Wapanucket site is located in Lakeville just six miles from Taunton. The other is the Titicut site in Bridgewater, which is 11 miles from Taunton and dates back 6,000 years.

- Mashpee was the place where many Wampanoag tribe members sought refuge after King Philip's War.